Densho Digital Archive - Eddie Owada Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

AL: So, just to introduce the tape, I'm gonna say my name is Alisa Lynch. I'm with the Manzanar National Historic Site Oral History Project. Today is the 5th of July, we are in Denver, Colorado, interviewing Mr. Eddie Owada. And, just before we begin, Eddie, I want to make sure that we have your permission to use the information from your interview for educational and historical purposes at Manzanar. Is that okay?

EO: Yes. That'd be fine.

AL: Okay, that's great. And if you could state your full name.

EO: Yes, it's Eddie. I have a middle name, a Japanese name, Toshio, T-O-S-H-I-O, Owada, O-W-A-D-A.

AL: Owada, okay. And when and where were you born?

EO: I was born in Tacoma, Washington, and I was born December 22, 1925.

AL: Okay. And you are Nisei, right?

EO: Yes, I'm a Nisei.

AL: So do you know where, on your father's side, what part of Japan was your father's family from?

EO: Yes. My father was from a place called Ibaraki-ken. Japanese romaji spelling, I-B-A-R-A-K-I hyphen K-E-N. And that's northeast of Tokyo, probably about 60 miles or about a hundred (kilometers).

AL: Okay.

EO: The name of the city at that time was Tachibanamura. I won't try to spell that.

AL: Tachibanamura.

EO: Uh-huh.

AL: Okay.

EO: Now, during the war, they changed it and called it Tamatsukuri, where they made bullets.

AL: Okay. And do you know what year he was born?

EO: Dad was born, I bet it was nineteen... no, 1888.

AL: Okay.

EO: Yeah, 1888.

AL: And what is your father's full name?

EO: Frank was his American name. Japanese name was Tsunenosuke.

AL: Tsunenosuke?

EO: Yeah. T-S-U-N-E-O-S-U-K-E, Owada.

AL: Okay. And in his family, was he the oldest or youngest or in the middle? Do you know?

EO: I don't know whether he had younger or older siblings or not. I do not know. We never talked about it and it never came up.

AL: Do you know what kind of business his family was in, in Japan?

EO: I have to assume at that time it was probably farming. Because that is kind of a farming area.

AL: Do you know anything about the level of prosperity of your family? If they owned their farm or owned a house or anything like that in Japan?

EO: That I don't know, but I know as far as financially, they were probably like most farmers, not very wealthy. In other words, poor. [Laughs]

AL: Right. What, what brought him to the United States and when?

EO: It was quite interesting. I asked my father about it and he came over near the latter part of World War I. And he said he came to the United States under orders from the Japanese government, as a communications person because Dad was a photographer. And the orders were, upon arrival into the United States, to report to the government, United States government. He didn't say whether it was the army or state department or what, but they just called it government. And when he did so, they went and assigned him to a communications department and shipped him over to Europe. He ended up in England, and there, he was one of the first photographers to take pictures of the German airships when they came over London. And then next he was sent to France and there he contracted the flu that most of the soldier had come down with. And after the war was over, he returned to the United States, coming through the Panama Canal locks. And I think the canal locks had been opened just about that time. I remember that because he had taken pictures at the canal locks and I had seen the glass plates that were made, 'cause they did not have film in those days. And then I have also seen some of the prints of the actual locks that he had made in his photo studios in Tacoma.

AL: So was he part of the, the army or he was just employed by the army?

EO: I think he was probably appointed by the army because being an alien, not a citizen of the United States, I don't know if he would have been able to be considered part of the army, so to say.

AL: There were some Issei who served in the First World War.

EO: Right, I heard about that. But, how he did, I do not, I don't know. Because coming back to it, when he came to the United States and went to Europe, on his way back, he landed in San Francisco. And there he got off the ship. He looked around, liked it, so he stayed. And he became, of course, an illegal alien. Whereas some of the other Isseis that came earlier may have gotten the necessary papers. I don't, I don't know. But you see... you know what I'm...

<Begin Segment 2>

AL: Do you think it was his plan originally to return to Japan?

EO: Yes, it was. It was, yeah. He's always wanted to kind of return to the homeland. But he liked it here so he stayed here when he got off the ship and worked his way on up to Tacoma, Washington, and then went to work for a photo studio. And shortly after that he bought the studio. This would have been in the very late 1900s or the early 1920s. He bought the studio. It was on 1327 and a half, Broadway.

AL: Do you know, did he buy it from another Japanese person?

EO: No, it was, it was a Caucasian. Because I had looked at the papers at one time and the name was a Caucasian name.

AL: What was the name of the studio?

EO: He called it the Tacoma Studio.

AL: And do know if his business was primarily other Japanese Americans or was it Caucasian or mixed? Do you know anything about it?

EO: It was mixed. Yeah, there were some very interesting pictures of course there. And being a photographer and having a studio, they'd get people... he has some pictures of Japanese consulate members that came over; pictures of Caucasian women dressed as, kind of in clownish type of clothes or uniform you want to call it. Children, picture of me in a little derby hat, I was about five years old. But it was everything.

AL: So, in this time, did he ever get his paperwork straightened out to become a legal immigrant or did he remain an illegal immigrant?

EO: He remained an illegal. I don't know if he could have become a legal immigrant because they were unable to become naturalized to gain American citizenship.

AL: I know some World War I veterans eventually got their citizenship, but maybe he was not among that group of World War I veterans. So, he... do you know anything about his living situation in Tacoma? Did he live in a boarding house, or did he buy anything?

EO: The part that I remember was his owning the studio. It was of course up on the second floor, 1327 and a half, half was upstairs. And the studio was up there. As you come in the door I remember kind of a large waiting room. And directly on the far end of the waiting room was a door into his darkroom. And to the left was the studio where he had his studio cameras and everything of that sort set up, chairs and backdrop. And to the right of the waiting room, in the back, was the living quarters. I remember back there they had a, a large room on one side and the little area was the kitchen. I remember the gas stove with a little spigot to turn it on. Bedroom... now it was an open area with a bed, bedroom on one end. And kitchen table and all the other necessary things on the right hand side of this large open space.

AL: Okay.

EO: And that's where, that's where home was.

AL: All right.

<Begin Segment 3>

AL: Just to go back a little bit, your mother... what is your mother's name and when and where was she born?

EO: Mother was from Japan. Her name was Kikue, K-I-K-U-E. And her last name was Goda, G-O-D-A. And I don't know what... well, wait a minute. She was born in 1897, 1897... you know, I remember that because we celebrated her hundredth birthday last year, in nineteen, in 2007.

AL: Hundred and ten birthday.

EO: Hundredth birthday.

AL: Last year was a hundredth birthday? Okay, so she was born in 1907, maybe?

EO: Maybe it was 1907. Dad was born in 1888. Yeah, 1907.

AL: 'Cause if it was last year that would be 1907.

EO: It was 1907.

AL: Is she still living, your mom?

EO: Yes.

AL: She is?

EO: California.

AL: How is her health?

EO: Real good. Gets around, pretty spry, does not use the cane.

AL: We should be interviewing her. 'Cause you're just a, you're just a kid.

EO: Yeah. I'm just a kid. I can set it up for you.

AL: We would be, I think, very interested because, you know, we don't have so many Issei interviews because there's not so many Issei around anymore. So we, we can talk about that. But I think we'd be very interested in talking to her if, if she would be willing and able.

EO: Right.

AL: So, what... do you know anything about her family life in Japan?

EO: No, I don't. No, that's one thing... see, because Mother and Father separated when I was five and a half years old. And so I wasn't old enough to know enough about the questions to ask about her home life back in Japan, things like that. I was just a kid.

AL: Do you know anything about what brought her to the United States? Was she a "picture bride"?

EO: She was the bride, arranged marriage, baishakunin, they call it. And that's how she came to the United States.

AL: Did she know your father in Japan or his family?

EO: Dad knew her family and her family came over here... I don't know if they came here before her marriage to Dad or after. But her parents were here in the United States, living in Seattle, Washington.

AL: Okay, so was she born in the United States?

EO: No, that's the part that is kind of cloudy. I hear she was born here in the United States but went to Japan right, almost, very shortly after her birth. So she did not have, somehow, did not have an American birth certificate. So she kind of went by the fact that she was born in Japan and I, I haven't seen a birth certificate from Japan. But that's just a kind of a talk back there in those days that things weren't really very clear.

AL: Do you know, was the baishakunin in, in the United States or in Japan, and who it was?

EO: It was, it wasn't made clear. But there was a knowledge of knowing her parents, and I don't know exactly how that worked. I was too young to have interest in that area.

AL: Do you know what year they married?

EO: Yes, I think it was about 1924, about a year before I was born.

AL: So she would have been, with the immigration law, she would have been right at the tail end of "picture brides." Because they, the immigration act was in 1924. What do you know about... were they married in Japan or in Tacoma, do you know?

EO: I believe they were born in Tacoma -- wed in Tacoma. Yeah. They were married in Tacoma.

AL: Do you know anything about the level of education of either of your parents?

EO: Dad, I believe, completed what we call high school. And so did Mother over there. And the reason I say that father is because he had to take his training in photography somewhere along the line. And it was in Japan. And if he did not, he did not finish high school, I doubt if he would have been able to get into photography school.

AL: Okay.

<Begin Segment 4>

AL: And you have, they had other children. Who were they and do you remember the years they were born, your brothers?

EO: Near as I can figure out, Dad never spoke too much about it, but I believe he was married in Japan once before. Because I had a half brother whose name was Daiji, who lived in Japan. He visited us when we were in Tacoma a couple of times. So he was married once before and whether he had just one son, Daiji, or another one, the first one, if he had one, is not very clear in my mind. He said he had two, and one of them had died earlier.

AL: How did you spell your brother's name?

EO: Daiji, D-A-I... I think they may have used the word J-I, Daiji, rather than G-I.

AL: Uh-huh. Daiji.

EO: I can't, I can't say for...

AL: Do you know what it translates to?

EO: "Dai" means great, Daiji... ji, guess it could be more than one thing, but I never explored that, researched it enough to be able to say.

AL: What about your Japanese name? Do you know what that translates as?

EO: Toshio, is kind of "firstborn".

AL: Okay.

EO: Toshi, it's age, O, Toshio. I guess firstborn.

AL: Okay, what about your, your younger brothers?

EO: Younger brother is Masayuki, M-A-S-A-Y-U-K-I. He had the English name John. Here's the funny thing about it. You know how Japanese people would say John? They can't say John. Just says "Jo-ne," meaning John. So on their birth certificate it was spelled J-H-O-N-E, see, Jhone. It was John. [Laughs] That's how it was.

AL: And how much younger than you is, is he?

EO: He was born in March 14th of 1927, I believe. So that would make him about a year and a half.

AL: Okay. And your other brother?

EO: The youngest brother was born April 14th of 1928. So there was a span of thirteen month.

AL: And what is his name?

EO: It was Saburo, S-A-B-U-R-O, meaning third-born. And his English name is Sam.

AL: Okay. And you mentioned to me before that you have some other half brothers and we'll talk about them later...

EO: Right.

AL: ...in chronological order.

<Begin Segment 5>

AL: What is your earliest childhood memory?

EO: My earliest childhood memory, there's a couple that really stands out in my mind. We'd have to back up a little. When we were in Tacoma, after I was born, and then John was born, then Sam was born, it was a little too much for our mother to take care of all three of us that close together. So she sent me to Seattle to live with her parents, so I lived with my maternal grandparents. And that's where my memory comes in. I remember my grandfather there, liked to go fishing. So he went fishing with his, you know, friends, that he would take. And I have recollection, very clearly, of going down to the wharves in Seattle and sitting there on the walkway of the wharves, warehouse type, and dropping the little line through the cracks -- which was probably about an inch wide with a little line sinker and the worm on the hook -- to fish for little porgies. And Dad and Grandfather and his friend would naturally fish for perch over the edge of the little walkway. But I was too young to be leaning over so I had to stick and fish for little porgies. Not... while they fished for the perch.

AL: What are porgies?

EO: Shiners.

AL: Okay.

EO: Little shiners... they're about this long. They look like baby, baby perch.

AL: And you were the only child they sent to your grandparents?

EO: Yes.

AL: What are your grandparents' names?

EO: Well, it was Goda, but I can't recall their first names.

AL: Okay.

EO: Yeah, I can't remember.

AL: And do you know what your grandfather's occupation was?

EO: No, I don't.

AL: Okay.

EO: I don't. I know he wasn't home during the daytime too much. Now, the other recollection I have very clearly of home is behind the house that we lived in, there was another house that was being torn down. And I remember standing in the house, looking out the back window. The window had been, glass had been removed. And I could look out and look up hill from there and see this bridge across this kind of a ravine with this street that we lived on running right up through it, underneath this bridge. On the left side of the bridge there was a dark red brick schoolhouse, schoolhouse like building. And that I remember very clearly. And I remember going out in the front yard and looking up and seeing the same one. But, it was something that struck me about that building being torn down and my standing in it and looking out... that it was just embedded in my mind.

AL: How old were you at the time?

EO: I was probably about four to five years old.

AL: Do you know what part of Seattle you lived in, your grandparents lived in?

EO: Yes. It was south of the main city part, kind of a, if you would, call it a business district. We know further down the street, probably a number of blocks, I would say maybe six blocks, seven, was the Union Pacific Railway station. And from there we had to go from the station little further south, a few blocks, and then up the street, slightly uphill to where we lived. I can't remember the name of the street but...

AL: That's okay.

EO: Remember the, the bridge and remember the schoolhouse.

AL: You have a great memory.

<Begin Segment 6>

AL: Did your, did your family have any sort of religious identification? Did they...

EO: Yes. In Japan, of course, I guess Dad was a Buddhist or Shinto. That was the main religion. I have to assume that. But since he came to this country, to the United States, and we were born, he wanted us to be Americans. So he would send us to any kind of a Christian church. It was usually nearest church that he sent us to. I remember in Tacoma we were too young to go to the church. But after we moved to Vashon Island after the Depression, I remember going to Methodist church, I remember going to a Baptist church. And I don't know what other churches we may have gone to. But it was a Christian church, and that's how we were raised. Dad said, "You're American. You're going to be going to a Christian church."

AL: Did your father or your mother, also attend Christian church? Or just the boys?

EO: Dad would, would take us a few times. But in church, we were still young so we were going to Sunday school. And Dad was also too busy to be going to church on Sunday. He was working on his farm. So... and like in Tacoma, we were a little too young to know about church, the benefit from it. So in Tacoma I do not remember going to a church. I don't think we did.

AL: What about your grandparents, were they Buddhist or Christian? Do you know?

EO: I don't know. I never noticed them going to a Buddhist church, but they would have, Issei people, the first generation, they would have various different annual meetings and things. And it was... usually it would be hosted by the Japanese Buddhist groups. Like New Year's get together, New Year's celebration. Things of, things of that sort.

<Begin Segment 7>

AL: Where and when did you start school?

EO: I started in Tacoma. I remember Dad walking me up the street about two blocks, then uphill on Broadway, up about two blocks. And up about maybe three blocks uphill, rather, kind of steep. And over on the left hand side of that street was this school. That was the first school I remember going to, first grade. Dad took me up there once, maybe twice. But I remember the school.

AL: Do you remember the name of the school?

EO: No I don't.

AL: Okay. What... do you remember anything about the makeup of the school? Like were there, was it other Nihonjins or hakujins or a mixture? Do you know anything?

EO: It was... I didn't see very many Japanese or Nihonjin kids. But they were mostly hakujin, Caucasian children.

AL: And who did you play with as a kid?

EO: Probably with any kid that I would probably run into. I never remembered too much of who we, who I, who I played with or what we played. I know we'd run around the playground. But what I do remember, coming home from school, I'd walk down the street, down to Broadway. I would go down one more block and then turn to my right and then I would walk about a half a block and there was a doughnut shop there. And in the window they had the doughnut machine and it just, just thrilled me just watching it. I would watch the white dough doughnut drop in out of the little doughnut maker, fall into this little channel of hot oil. It would float along gettin' a little browner and browner and browner. When it got to the end it was all nice and brown, doughnut. And I would sit there for several minutes, stand there for several minutes just watching the donuts being deep fried like that.

AL: Did you ever get any of them?

EO: Never did.

AL: Never.

EO: Didn't have any money. Dad never gave us any money for that. And besides, probably won't know how to do it anyways. But, from there I'd walk another half a block, then back up a half a block to Broadway, and another half block to my left to where we lived, the studio.

AL: And was your neighborhood integrated? Different groups?

EO: There were a few Japanese families in the nearby blocks. But not on the block that we lived in, except for the corner store. On one corner as we came out of our studio, to the right on that corner was a Walgreen drugstore. On the left was the Furuya, F-U-R-U-Y-A, Furuya, and that's where the Japanese bank was, Furuya. And it was kind of a, almost like a dry goods store, Furuya. They did financial things as well as some dry goods type.

AL: I have another question about school. What was your favorite subject in school and why?

EO: Then? I was too young to have a favorite one.

AL: What about any sports or any other activities?

EO: Pardon?

AL: Did you do any sports or other activities in school?

EO: Not when I was young. Not that... not until I got into probably about third, fourth, fifth and sixth and seventh, eighth grade. It was K-eight types of school -- not K-eight, but one-eight type of school.

<Begin Segment 8>

AL: And you said earlier that your parents separated when you were about five.

EO: Five and a half.

AL: Do you know anything about the circumstances of why they separated?

EO: Yes. Near as I can kind of, shall we say, piece things together, they separated when I was five and a half. Mother told me this. And I knew Dad was very old-fashioned Japanese, head of the household man. And you can probably say almost like autocratic, I guess. 'Cause that's how many of the old timers were, whether it was from Europe or from Asia. The man was the boss of the house. But he was very strict and I know he was very strict with Mother. And Mother was probably a little bit more open-minded about things, a little bit more Americanized, leaning a little more towards freedom for the women, too. And I think it just plain got to her and it was just getting to be a little bit too heavy. And she knows that she could not have told Dad that, "I want a divorce, I want to leave." Dad would say, "No." You know what I mean? And for the Caucasian, like some of the old European parents, it was the same thing. They were the boss, that was it. So, she had to get away somehow. I remember the night she left. Dad had a friend visiting her in the... visiting him in the studio. They were chatting away and I was there, I listened in with them. And Mother came with my youngest brother. And she said to my dad, "I'm going to the corner drugstore," the Rexal drugstore. I remember Rexal Drugs not because of the R-E-X-A-L on it, but by the fact that it was orange and blue color. [Laughs] Now, she left, took my brother and went there and it became later in the night. She didn't return. And we wondered, "Well, I wonder what happened." So Dad took me and we went to the drugstore and we went in there and looked around. We didn't see her. But we found my youngest brother Sam in the back part of the store where the public gathers. And we asked him what happened, and he said, "Mother just went. She didn't say anything." So we knew she had left, so we took Sam and we went home together. And that's how they separated.

AL: Do you know if he tried to persuade her to come back?

EO: Yes, he did. Finally got in touch with her. I remember in camp, even in camp -- this is a few years later, of course -- writing some letters to the camp director of the camp that we, that Dad learned she was in. She was in Topaz. Saying that he wanted her back and all that. She had run off, she had run off with the help of another man. And whether they got married then or not, I don't know that part. But she did not want to come back. But I remember writing those letters that this other party had stolen my mother, things like that. The copies of the letters were in my file in the National Archives, or they were in Dad's file, I forgot, I don't know which, probably Dad's file. But since I got copy of the file, that's how I ran into it, copies of letters. And I had written them for him when I was a kid. Dad didn't write English too well.

AL: Do you know who the man was? Was he a Japanese American, or...

EO: Yeah. Japanese. I don't know. He wasn't Japanese American. He was Japanese, Issei...

AL: Issei.

EO: First generation. Yeah.

AL: About your father's age? Or younger?

EO: I don't know, probably younger. Because, backing up again, when Dad and Mother were first kind of introduced by mail, I believe, Dad had told Mother he was something like twenty some odd years of age. And Mother was still probably only about sixteen. And when she did meet him, it turned out that he was about thirty-five or thirty-six years old, twenty years older than she, she was.

AL: I've heard that's a pretty common experience. That they would --

EO: It sure was.

AL: -- send a picture when they were a young man and then, you know... maybe like Internet dating today or something. [Laughs]

EO: Yeah, very, very much so. That's how it was. He was twenty years older than... and she was, I guess rather taken aback a bit because of that. But when you get married baishakunin way, it kind of, ganbaru, you know, ganbare.

AL: Endure?

EO: Yeah. Endure. And I had the feeling that's what she had to do. And it was quite a strain on her and that's why she had to leave the way she did.

AL: Do you know, did she go to her parents' in Seattle? Did they...

EO: No, she did not.

AL: Okay, did --

EO: They took off somewhere out of Tacoma area.

AL: Did your grandparents stay involved with you after she was gone?

EO: I don't know what happened to them. I don't know if they had gone back to Japan after I left them and went back to Tacoma. I never asked my mother that, what happened to them. But chances are they may have. 'Cause she never spoke much about them, ever even we all got together, fifty years later.

AL: That would probably be something that would be a haji, shame, for her parents maybe?

EO: It would be, yeah, it would be a... they were considered haji, a disgrace. Haji is disgrace. H-A-J-I, probably, haji. Because to become divorced was looked upon as being a disgraceful act. But I don't know for sure, what that may have played in my grandparents', my maternal grandparents' lives.

AL: And your youngest brother at that time was what, about three?

EO: About three, uh-huh.

AL: So, how, who took care of him? I mean, what was your family life like after your mother left?

EO: We were there, up there, upstairs in our home, and Dad just kind of looked after us. Studio was right there, so he didn't have to look for a babysitter, if they had one back there in those days. And I remember our little stove, Dad would cook on it. I remember looking out the window. We can look into the rest of the block, below the studio, there. And I remember one night we were eating an apple. It had been all sliced up. My brothers and I were eating the apple looking out the window. And I remember the taste of the apple. It had, what kind, it was Red Delicious. I remember some of the darnedest things. And it had kind of an odd taste, just kind of a little unusual, that you would experience in some apple. I know, some of those little things that I would remember. I don't know why I would remember some of these darn things, but I would.

AL: Did you help care for your younger brothers at that time?

EO: Just kinda looked after. I was too young to do anything, anything worthwhile.

<Begin Segment 9>

AL: What else, anything else about your life in Tacoma before your father moved to Vashon? Any other memories?

EO: Yes, let's see. I remember, I remember Dad taking me over to the photo supply place where he bought paper, photo papers. The man's name was Mr. Stewart. He pronounced it differently, but I gather it was Stewart, and he took me there and I met Mr. Stewart. He was a very nice gentleman, helped Dad out with his photo supplies to quite an extent. That I remember. And I remember during the time we were running the photo studio, that one day it was just about the time the Depression was hitting pretty hard, I remember Dad saying, "I'm going down to the bank," which meant the Furuya Bank. And about maybe a half hour later, forty-five minutes, he came back with a very puzzled look on his face and he said -- this was all in Japanese -- "The bank was closed." And that was it. And that's how the banks went bankrupt. That was, they closed the doors, nothing said.

AL: So, did he lose his money then, during the Depression?

EO: Oh, yes. There was nothing to get. Bank was now closed. And so he was just stuck with just what he had on hand. And I remember moving from there to a farm, to a farmhouse in Sumner, Washington, which is just south and east of Tacoma. And we had a friend of ours, had an old -- this the boys' stuff -- Mack truck. And we piled everything in the back, pretty high. It seemed high to us. And my brother John and I rode on top of that, all that bedding on top of the truck, to this place in Sumner. Dad was the driver with his friend, and Sam, I guess, rode in front. And we lived there in Sumner for, oh maybe, less than a year. And from there we moved to Vashon Island.

AL: Why did your father move to Sumner?

EO: From there, he had, apparently had some kind of a work opportunity. I remember the place we moved to, was a little single story house. It was across the road from the Fleishman's yeast factory. It was a long tan brick building, was the Fleishman's yeast... it was a large open air green space in front of it, and a kind of a depression before that. But that, I remember that, the Fleishman's yeast factory.

AL: So he closed his photo studio?

EO: Yes, 'cause there was no more business. Nothing to do, so... had to go out and make money, farm, eat, anyway.

AL: And how did, how did he end up on Vashon Island?

EO: Well, apparently he... well, he had gone there... maybe we had made some friends, or he had made some friend. And there was opportunity to take over some farmland or to do some farming there. So, because of that, we moved from Sumner over to Vashon Island. I remember arriving there. We arrived there one evening in a city park that was called Burton, B-U-R-T-O-N. And it was up on this little road uphill from the town of Burton, uphill from the elementary school. And we arrived there at night and I remember some friends of Dad's coming over, that lived on the island, to help us unload. Unload in this older two-story house. And there were some pear trees there. And it was in the fall, or late summer, and so a lot of the pears had fallen, it was on the ground. And some were still good so we were able to eat some of them. And I remember those pears being very delicious. That's what I remember about that place. [Laughs]

AL: Did you go to Japanese language school as a boy?

EO: We didn't, we did not. We didn't have access to one. But Dad would teach us some Japanese and he did this by reading out of Japanese elementary school books that he bought for us to study. But that didn't last long. On a farm, we were too busy taking care of the farm, so studies kind of went by the wayside.

AL: What were you farming?

EO: A lot of peas was the main thing, and berries of all kinds. I remember strawberries. We raised boysenberries, we raised blackberries, raspberries. And then aside from the peas, we would raise, one year we raised a lot of turnips. And that's what we kind of raised.

AL: Did your father own the farm or was he leasing the farm?

EO: He was leasing. He was unable to own because he was an alien, and also he didn't have enough finances to buy one, which he probably would have done in my name because I was an American-born citizen.

AL: How big was the farm?

EO: We had various different acreages. Where we lived on Vashon, we had everything from about 3 acres on up to about 10 acres of farm. The farm would be like 20 acres, 10 acres would be in pasture.

<Begin Segment 10>

EO: Okay, and now, while we were on Vashon, I remember moving from the one house on Vashon to another place up on the little town of Vashon, to the east. We lived there for a while. I remember going to the Vashon grade school at that time, and I remember some of our neighbors. And then from there we moved to a place in, place called Quartermaster. And we lived there for a short period of time, did a little farming there. We had a Japanese neighbor across the street. Name was Ichikawa, he was a single man, he was farming. And I remember, as about a seven or eight year old, I would, I ended up on the field weeding some of the, in some of the row crops. There I went to Burton grade school. Then we moved to another place up there on the island, west of the main highway going north and south. I think it was also considered Vashon. But it was a small place. I remember some of our neighbors, Marshall was one. Then they had... parents, would have been... their son, Bob, grandfather. And they had some dairy cows and they gave us skim milk. 'Cause they would use this, the skimmer to take the cream off for butter or whatever. And the skim milk would be of waste to them, so they would give us that. And I was going, at that time, to Center grade school, Center grade school for a while. I remember walking to school -- the high school and grade school were rather close together. And I walked to school then one day with Bob Marshall. He was older, he was going to high school. And he had -- there again I remember the darnedest little things -- I remember he had a little jacket with a zipper. And I remember one question I had asked Bob is, "Will a bullet go through that zipper?" 'Cause it was a metal zipper.

And then from there... oh, I remember, while we were living Vashon and also there at Center, Dad met a, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, name was Tom Dunn. And Tom was a very kind-hearted fellow. He had lost an eye in the war, and so I guess he was living on some kind of a military pension. But he stopped by quite, every so often. And one day he gave each of us a quarter. And a quarter was a lot of money then. And he said for us to, "Go ahead, spend it on whatever you like." So we went up to this, ran up to the store, and I remember buying a Hersey bar. It was about a one-pound bar then, Hersey's. And we never got candy like that before and so it was a real treat. It was so good that we ate that, or I ate that candy bar until I got sick. I didn't eat all of it, but I got sick. And that cured me from eatin' too much chocolate at one time.

Another thing I remember, Dad had sent us to our nearest church. It was a Methodist church. He'd give us a penny to put into the offering at Sunday school. It was Sunday school then. And every so often we'd be typical boys. On the way there in the little town of Vashon there, there was a little candy store. And so we'd look at the penny, we'd look at the candy, and we were tempted at times. And so, because of the temptation, we went in the store and bought a tootsie roll for a penny. That time, the tootsie roll was about this long. It was pretty good size, and about as big around as maybe a little larger than a pencil. And buying that for a penny. And then the other penny we would put in the offering at Sunday school. Darnedest thing we would remember.

AL: Just to back up for a moment, about what year did you move to Sumner, do you remember?

EO: Sumner, I was probably about six years old then. Six, maybe six and a half.

AL: So, around 1930.

EO: Yeah, '30, '31.

AL: And what year, what year did you move to Vashon?

EO: It would have been the following year after that. And that was, I was still in about the first grade, I believe. First, maybe just entering second.

<Begin Segment 11>

AL: So you lived about a decade, you lived about ten years on Vashon before the war, close to it.

EO: Yes I did, uh-huh.

AL: Which brings me to my next question. What do you remember of December 7, 1941?

EO: I remember, it was Sunday morning, and we were sittin' around in the kitchen, gettin' ready to go out and do somethin' around the farm. There wasn't too much to do now that the harvest was over. December, winter coming on. But one thing we did during the winter was, being that we raised a lot of garden peas, we would string the peas up with twine on these posts that we would set up in the rows of peas. In the wintertime, we would take those twine, tie a knot, tie 'em together, and make balls of twine that we would use in following year. But we were sittin' around home doing things like that and we heard, somehow, that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. And we wondered, "What's Pearl Harbor?" And Dad said, "Oh, I think Pearl Harbor is in Hawaii, which is an island halfway between the States and Japan." Then we heard later during the day, from friends and from others, that was kind of rumor like, that Japan had also attacked the Philippine Islands, and all that. And we weren't able to believe that. It was kind of a shock to us.

AL: So had you, had your father been following the news in the months before that about the tensions building, or was it totally out of the blue?

EO: He would hear -- because we were too poor to take the newspaper. -- But we would hear from our friends that, would hear from friends and maybe some of 'em had a radio. And some have little understanding of English language through their kids. So, we knew there was kind of a tension, but their actually attacking Pearl Harbor was, was a shock. It was really, it was a real shock to us.

AL: Do you know if your father had kept in touch with his family in Japan, his son or his parents?

EO: He would occasionally write them letters. I remember his writing letters in Japanese. So, I knew they were corresponding. He would say what was happening, going on with the family, but not much about national or the world affairs.

AL: Did you ever visit Japan as a child?

EO: Never did.

AL: Never did. Did he ever go back to visit before the war?

EO: Oh, I never did and he never did.

AL: He never did, okay.

EO: No.

AL: What did you think was gonna happen after Pearl Harbor?

EO: We didn't have an idea. I was still, I had, I was still fifteen at that time. And my geography was so poor I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was until the kids told me it was on Hawaii. And I had an idea that was somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

AL: Did you father say anything about what he thought? I mean, did he think Japan would win or lose or anything?

EO: He, actually as far as the war starting, was very surprised. And like any, or many of the Isseis, their... not allegiance, but their devotion to the homeland was pretty strong. So he would say, "Japan will probably win, win the war." Because they were making such advances into Malaysia and all the southern, South Asian islands at that time.

AL: And did he say anything to you about your situation as an American, if Japan won the war?

EO: No, he didn't. He never dwelt on it too much. But just that he thought maybe Japan would probably win simply, again, because of his devotion to the motherland. But he kept telling us we're Americans. So, he wanted us to continue American ways.

AL: Do you think he wanted Japan to win or he just thought that it would win?

EO: I think it was that he thought, because I think he enjoyed his life here. One of the reasons why is once he was picked up by the FBI and interrogated, at one point I think they asked him if he wanted to be repatriated to Japan. And he had told them that if he is repatriated, that he would want to take us, the three boys, with him. But he never was, so that's one reason why I'm still here. [Laughs] So it was a pretty close call.

<Begin Segment 12>

AL: Were you home when the FBI came to take him?

EO: Oh yes, we were all home.

AL: When did that happen and what happened?

EO: February 7, 1942, two months after Pearl Harbor. We were sittin' around again in the kitchen. It was still winter, so not too much to do outside. And suddenly -- it was still morning -- knock on the door. Two men in dark suits were there. Dad answered the door and they said they were from the FBI. They were here to search our place, which meant the house, the land, the outbuildings, barns, shed, chicken coops, everything. And we didn't even think at that time about, oh, anything about search warrants. So we didn't even ask and they didn't even mention search warrants, or didn't even talk about it. They just simply said, "One of us will search your house," and the other one would search the outbuildings and the rest of the farm. And they were looking for that explosives that's on that one paper. But, the end of the day they didn't find anything. So, they said to me, "We're going to take your father with us." And there wasn't much I can do. So I said, "Yeah, okay, go ahead." And they took him. They didn't tell me when... where he was being taken. He was able to leave with us all the money he had, which was $1.43. So he left that and they took him and we didn't hear from him, from him for about a week. And when we first heard from him, I opened the envelope and a letter, spread it open, there were sections cut out of it. They had all been censored. What was deleted or cut out by the censors was any reference to where he was or where he was being taken. All that was cut out.

AL: Do you know where he was, though? Since then have you found out where they took him?

EO: Yeah, he was taken to Missoula, Montana. I don't know if he went to Bismarck first or not, I can't remember. He kept speaking about Bismarck as being one of the places where some of the Isseis were detained. But he ended up in Missoula, Montana.

AL: And how did you find out he was in Missoula?

EO: He finally was, wrote to us, able to write to us. And the postmark said Missoula on it.

AL: And so you were then, you became the head of the family, right?

EO: Right. Yes, I was sixteen, a big kid then.

AL: What about your little brothers, how did they... were they scared? Were they upset?

EO: They didn't... they never told me. But I guess they were often wondering what was happening.

AL: Were you working at that time, besides on the farm?

EO: Yes, I had to in order to make a few dollars to support ourselves. 'Cause the $1.43 that Dad left, it wasn't going very far.

AL: What was your job?

EO: Well, what I did was I'd take a horse -- we had a good horse, good draft horse named Prince -- and I would take that and our plow, single plow that is one horse plow, and I would go around to all of our neighbors farms and contract plowing their berry field. We would just plow a furrow onto the bottom of the berry to keep the weeds down. And I did with several farmers around there.

AL: Were you still in school at that time?

EO: Yeah. The boys were still in school and I had dropped out so I can do all this.

AL: Did you have any experiences of other people treating you differently after Pearl Harbor, after your father was arrested?

EO: Oh, come to think of it, I would drive into Tacoma quite often to... not Tacoma, but Seattle. Tacoma maybe once during the entire period. But Seattle, two, three times, four times, and to just kind of pick things up. 'Cause I had learned by this time where various different things were. So that's what I did. Drive into Tacoma once, but Seattle more often.

AL: And did you have any interactions with people, hakujins or other people treating you differently because of Pearl Harbor?

EO: Oh, on the island we knew each other, almost everyone there in our neighborhood. And being that it was just a small neighborhood, war was not extreme yet, so it wasn't like L.A. where we had a lotta hostility. Everyone knew everyone. They knew we were safe.

<Begin Segment 13>

AL: How did you find out, or when did you find out that you were gonna be taken to a camp?

EO: Well, we were still wondering what was happening, this was in December and January, and there was, the FBI picked Dad up. We'd hear all kinds of rumors from all of our friends. One of the rumors was that, "Well, we hear they're gonna take all of us Japanese people and put us into jail, into a jail or some kind of a prison. Maybe some kind of a camp." And then we'd rationalize and we'd say, "No, they can't do that because we're American citizens. We were born here, just like all of our other friends are." And then some more rationalization. Then we end up with, "But our father and our mothers are, are still Issei, they're not American citizens." And of course they weren't able to be. The naturalization law, I think it was still in effect. And so they said, "Maybe they can take them and put 'em into this, put 'em into this jail or their camps that they're talkin' about." And we often wondered what was happening. And then of course, Dad was picked up. And then we saw these posters in the, by telephone posts. We saw ours, I think it was in May, about the first, second week in May. And it said that we can take with us anything and everything we can carry, except pets. And of course firearms, radios, shortwave radios, any kind of weaponry, had been turned in already to the government in Seattle. That was the requirement. So we had to hand over all of firearms, everything we had there we had turned in. So, we had just ourselves now to think about. And everything were very unclear. And, 'cause this poster never did say too much. It just, except that we were being evacuated. And then of course Dad was now, after February the 7th, was in the POW camp away from, away from us. And according to what we had heard, we had five days to get ready for this evacuation. They recommended things we could take with us, toilet articles, a few bedding, light bedding, clothes, shoes, socks, everything we would be wearing, toilet articles. And then... oh, we had our horse, good horse, Prince. So we had, we were able to sell the horse because it was such a good horse. And we were able to sell a little farm truck we had, we had a little 1928 GMC. When it comes to mechanic things, I'll remember. It had a Pontiac engine in it, two separate cylinder heads.

AL: How much did you sell it for?

EO: I think I sold it for fifty dollars.

AL: And how about the horse?

EO: Horse, I think we got about $125 for it. That or a hundred.

AL: Was that considered a good price for it?

EO: It's a good buy. 'Course, back there then, everything costs less. When we bought the horse a little earlier, we paid $150 for it. It was a Belgian Percheron, kind of a grayish-colored horse.

AL: What was the most difficult thing to leave behind?

EO: Well, you know, it's the, it's the ignorance of youth that was probably a lifesaver. I know a lotta the older people that were, shall we say maybe in their twenties and thirties and forties, realized they were leaving all the things they had, that they had accumulated and worked for and earned, for the last many years. They were leaving that behind, not knowing what's going to happen. Because there was no place to store it. They had to entrust it to some friends which did not turn out to be friends in all cases. But, no facilities large enough to store everything, so they had to leave it. So they felt a very depressed, very unsure of what was happening. But, here again, the innocence and the ignorance of youth was our lifesaver. We felt like we were just taking a trip from the farm. We saw the people for the last time and we knew we were going to miss them. We would say goodbye, but there was no great attachment... well, there was attachment, but not attachment through which we would feel separation, a negative separation. We didn't have that. But I guess while we're young, we're still pretty dumb. As we get older we just, we get smarter. But while we're young we have a lot of physical energy. And as we get older our energy drops. So it compensates, one compensates for the other. [Laughs] That's the way I kinda look at it. That's what I kind of analyze.

AL: And those of us in the middle don't have too much of either. [Laughs]

EO: Well, no, they, they have the balance of the two. [Laughs]

AL: Okay.

<Begin Segment 14>

AL: And you went, you went from there to Pinedale Assembly Center? Is that correct?

EO: Yes.

AL: How did you end up in Pinedale?

EO: Well, there was a little piece of paper that said, "You are assigned to Pinedale, California." When... I'll back up a little bit here. When the signs first came up -- and I have two of the original posters yet. A friend of mine had taken them off, Caucasian friend, and he had them and gave them to me several years later. But I remember being instructed by whoever it was then, the military people, to pack what we can carry like it said on the poster. And, "Be ready for the evacuation and the government will pick you up." And they mentioned the date. We had five days to prepare for the evacuation. Some of the people were more fortunate because they had up to seven days. We were more fortunate than others because some of 'em only had about two days. So, I managed to sell the horse, and then sell the little truck, nothing else. Everything else we had to leave because no one was interested. And what I remember was I helped my two younger brothers pack whatever we had that we were taking with us, clothes, toilet articles, the things that I already mentioned. And we stood there at the kitchen window, looking out at the driveway, and we saw this army truck pull up and then back into the driveway. And as it backed into the driveway and stopped, we can see into the back of the truck. There were some people there. Soldier, armed soldier with his rifle, got out of the truck and came up to the house. As he came to the door, we opened the door and soldier said, "All right, come on with us." And so we picked up our things. I remember going to the truck, dropped the tailgate -- army truck has a military tailgate -- I helped my brother into it. Threw our baggage into the back of the truck, soldier went and lift up the tailgate. I climbed up back into the, into the back of the truck. And then there was a soldier in the back with us. And there was a few other Japanese people that we knew there. And then, after the other soldier got in the front of the truck, in the cab, the driver took off down the road.

And I remember looking back seeing the place where we lived, some dust coming up on the road. And then driving through the island up north to where the ferry landing was. It was a ferry that went to... I keep thinking, Point Defiance was Tacoma side. And the Seattle side was... there was a park there that we used to go there on the school summer vacation or break, summer break. Point Defiance, Tacoma... I can't think of the name of the other... Lincoln Park, was it. I remember going there and we stayed on the truck all the way while we were on the ferry. Where the others, after we drove onto the dock and then onto the ferry, they marched down the platform and gangplank onto the ferry and went up to the passenger compartment. But they were the ones that were dropped off first, and the trucks come back and picked us up. Since we, since we were the last ones to be picked up, we remained on the truck.

Truck took off through the city, I knew it was Seattle. And then a little later pulled up to a railroad siding. Not the Union Pacific station, but the siding. And there were a lot more people there and a lot more soldiers and more trucks. We were ordered off the truck and over towards the old railroad cars. People were lined up in front. We got our stuff, we went up there, and all the other people were there. All three of us were together, three boys. Some of the people would ask, "Where are we going?" No one knew. Some people would ask others, older people, "Do you know where we're going?" "No. They haven't told us." And later we were ordered to board the train. They had taken our baggage, put 'em onto a separate railroad car, rather than to carry it inside the old troop train car. And we ended up in the car. It was kinda, it was kind of covered with soot, pretty dirty, if I remember. There was a soldier at each entrance of the car, one on each end, with a rifle. I know when they took us down to the railroad station and picked it up, they had their bayonets fixed at that time. But anyway, on the train, I remember traveling for three days and two nights. And we would talk with some of the soldiers. They would talk to us. A question would come, "Where are we going?" They didn't know. They said they didn't have that information. They said, "Don't know." I remember at night we were ordered to pull the shades down on the windows on the railroad car. And any time we came to a little town or where there were people congregated, we were ordered to pull the shades. And at night, shades were always pulled. I think it was because any light being visible from the outside can be seen by enemy planes flying overhead, and chances of being bombed or shot at was much higher. And we traveled like that, not knowin' where we're going. I remember a time the train was, slowed down, and I know because of the experience, it was getting colder. So we were going up a hill into a mountain country, at night. And I remember going down, hittin' a level country. It'd be hot. I remember train stopping at the railroad siding. And soldiers would get out to face the train with maybe 15-20 feet between them and the train and we were able to, able to get out and stretch and just kind of walk around a little bit. Back onto the train, train would take off. We had the meals on the train, very basic kind of meal. Not the dining car meal that you see in the movies. But this movie didn't have those cars. And we were kind of looking at some, any signs at some of the little places we would go by, little railroad stop. Some of the people saw some, but I did not recognize any of them.

<Begin Segment 15>

EO: And then finally, the third day, we pulled up to another railroad siding, ordered to get out, desert, desert country. And then back onto the trucks. Truck rumbled off. And I remember it going over into a gated area and it was Pinedale, California, the assembly center, a newly constructed one. We were pretty lucky that we ended up at one of those that was pre-constructed, pretty good, pretty good condition. And we got off inside the compound there and they assigned us to the different barracks where we would be living.

AL: Who did you live with?

EO: Our three brothers. It was just three of us.

AL: You had your own barrack?

EO: Yes. No, not the whole barracks. Barrack was divided. Barrack was 60-70 feet long, divided into various different apartments. For... this was same as in the final relocation center. First we were all concentrated in these assembly centers. They were 20 feet wide and for a family up to five people, four, three, four, and five, they were given one of these 16 by 20 foot apartments. Couples with maybe just a little child or a single person or just a couple were given a smaller one, 20 feet by about 12 feet. That's where we were assigned. That was it. They had a central toilet, central shower, central mess hall that each person in the block went and used.

AL: Did you work in Pinedale?

EO: In Pinedale I did not. No, there wasn't much work for us in Pinedale.

AL: So how did you spend your days?

EO: Just kind of walking around, talking with other people, jumping water puddles, things like that. Going to the central canteen, they call it the PX, Post Exchange, army term. And I remember back home we would hear about people buying Kleenex, those paper tissues that just came out, it was really the fad, Kleenex. And I remember we had a few dollars from selling our horse and selling our truck. And I remember going to camp, I had something like $129. Had it in a little money belt around my waist. And I gave my brothers a few dollars. At that time, a dollar was a lot of money. And while we were in the assembly center there, it's a funny thing. Being born in an all male family, we were pretty dumb, pretty ignorant, pretty stupid about women. We didn't really know any and we were kind of afraid of them. But we didn't know about women. And my brother, one of my brothers, John, had a thought of Kleenex in his mind, Kleenex. So he went to the post, the Post Exchange to buy a little package of Kleenex, 'cause we would see people with Kleenex, using them, and said hey, yeah, that's pretty neat. When he got there he looked at some of the packages there, Kleenex, it started with a "K" right? So he bought a package and brought it home. Opened it up, it was Kotex. [Laughs] And so... and we didn't know what it was. But, that is one of those things that evacuation taught us. So, because of the evacuation, we learned a few things that isn't taught in school. But we learned because of the congregation in camp and as a mixture of the male and the female, boys and girls, guys and gals, mothers and fathers. So we got some education there.

AL: Did you meet any girls that you, you were fond of in Pinedale?

EO: So we got a crush on? No, not, not in Pinedale. Probably later on in Tule Lake and Minidoka.

<Begin Segment 16>

AL: How did you, how did you get to Tule Lake and what did you know about Tule Lake before you got there?

EO: Yes. They transferred us, that is, the three of us were together, to Tule Lake to our permanent Relocation Center. We didn't ask why. But they just took, took us there in the troop train. I remember going to Nevada, looking at the desert. Made a kind of big loop at Winnemucca. And I can see the Winnemucca countryside, Battle Mountain, and then we ended up over in Tule Lake, up north into Tule Lake country. We were assigned... our address up there was Block 59, 17 barrack, room F. It was the end one right next to the mess hall. And that's how we ended up there. And when we were there, this was already in 1942, May, June, July... probably about July of '42. We ended up there and we would hear about work. My brothers were too young to work. I had already turned sixteen now. And so I was eligible to get a part-time work working at the hospital and the hospital kitchen. I went there with another friend of mine, Frank Takahashi. And both worked there with some other folks in the kitchen. The kitchen night shift was a fellow named Makino. He was an old Issei man, he was a good cook. And we worked there during the, part-time in the evening. Then we went to school when the school started in September, in camp, and I continued working part-time at night.

AL: So you went back to school, in camp?

EO: Yes, uh-huh, in camp we had high school. And my brothers, two brothers continued in school. I went back to school and I remember some of the kids there at school, there was quite a few kids of course, I remember some of the kids from California, some of the kids in our blocks. And I remember working at the hospital during the summer months as a tray boy. We'd take the mess food from the kitchen on these big carts to the different wards. We had Ward A, B, C on through F, I believe it was. And we'd deliver the food there. I met some of the dietician, one was Joycelyn Tsujimichi. She now lives in Nevada, Reno. Married Tom... Tom, oh, last name starts with a K. Not Kinoshita. But, he's from Auburn, California. Hank Teshima, another boy from Loomis County, California. And I made quite a few friends that way.

<Begin Segment 17>

AL: What kind of pastimes did you have in camp? Were you involved in any sports or clubs?

EO: Yes, there was. We watched kids playing baseball, some softball. And that's where I was introduced to weightlifting. 1943, the Klamath Falls weightlifting club came down to Tule Lake and they had a kind of a impromptu weightlifting contest. And the Tule Lake had quite a group of weightlifters, the picture. And Emerick Ishikawa, who was becoming a national champion, was the one that kind of started the club there. And from Bob Hoffman in York, Pennsylvania, I think it was through him, he managed to get, at that time a Olympic type weightlifting set. Nothing compared with the Olympic set of today. He had quite a group gathered there. And that's where I was introduced to weightlifting. And, I carried that with me the following year, in 1944 when I was transferred to Minidoka, Idaho, as one of the "yes-yes" boys, people would know. That's when we had to answer a "loyalty questionnaire." We were sent there to Tule Lake -- from Tule Lake to Minidoka.

And there in Minidoka we continued going to school. I remember one of my teacher's name was Frank Kawasaki. He was my shop and mechanical engineer, mechanical instructor. And from him I learned more about mechanics. I was very interested in mechanical things. I was interested in driving, and I was interested in the trucks, and so the things that he taught was right down my line. I remember when I was a kid at home back on the island, I would get a Sears Roebuck catalog, look through and get to the automobile parts section and look at the different things, like the differential parts, axel parts, the tires. And try to figure, by putting them together mentally, how everything worked. I remember going to our neighbor's place one day, 'cause Dad wanted to order some tires for a Model T Ford that he had. He can drive a Model T 'cause it didn't have a stick shift. And I remember the size of the tires were 33 1/2 by 30 inch, 30 by 3 1/2 inch tire. And we wanted to get a tube for it. T-U-B-E. My English and everything being lousy, I used to call it a tub, instead of a tube. I went to our neighbors and said... I showed 'em the paper, the order blank we had made out, put down the number. She checked that that was all right. And, "I wanted to get one 30 by 3 1/2 inch tub for this tire." Oh, she said, "That's called a tube." And so I learned little by little about these things. I watched my dad change the transmission band on Model T Ford. And little by little I picked up different things about the automobile. So when I went to Minidoka I was very interested in mechanical things. Over there they had one truck that had... it was a international KK-7. The model came before the KB-7. I looked at, crawled underneath and looked at it, it had a five-speed transmission. Wow. It had a three-speed brownie -- which is auxiliary transmission, Brown-Lipe auxiliary -- and I was really thrilled by looking at those things. And it ended up that in, in Minidoka, I got a job -- maybe because of my mechanical interests and ability -- job at the fire station. I was an engineer driving the fire truck. That was something. The fire chief was Mitch Yano. He later, in Salt Lake City, became one of my judo instructors.

AL: You know, we have a 1942 fire engine at Manzanar. It's got like 8,000 miles on it. So, if you ever come to Manzanar, you can drive our fire truck. [Laughs]

KP: You can crawl underneath it and look at it, too.

EO: It was probably a Ford LaFrance? Or a Boyer.

AL: Ours is a, it's a Ford.

EO: Ford would be a Ford LaFrance.

AL: Okay.

EO: LaFrance fire engine that's on it. We had, we had Ford LaFrance and the Boyer. You know, Boyeir, Boyer we call it.

KP: That would be the body that they put on the truck? Is that what you're talking about?

EO: Yeah, the cab was a regular --

KP: Ford.

EO: -- International or a Ford. The back... the far section with the pumps, the reel, hoses, was a LaFrance or a Boyer.

AL: We might have to contact you when we go to restore it, 'cause we... that's, it's helpful to have that information. You were talking about your dad and mechanics. Were you in contact with your father while you were in the camps?

EO: Yes. Just before we were transferred out of Tule Lake, he was able to join us. But in August of 1942, through channels, we requested that Dad be released from the POW camp in Missoula to join three young teenagers who were without adult supervision in Tule Lake. One year to the date on that paper, Dad was released and he joined us in Tule Lake. And he was there for just a short period of time when he was transferred with us to Minidoka.

AL: Did he have any kind of advice for you or directions for you when you were in camp before he was with you about how he wanted you to behave or how he wanted you to answer the "loyalty questionnaire"? Any kinds of...

EO: The "loyalty questionnaire," he never said anything about that. But we just, we were... for me, I was American, I wanted the American way. I didn't even want Japanese. So to me, "yes-yes" was easy. Dad would tell us about being good boys. 'Cause we were just kids yet then. And that was the main thing, emphasis, and he emphasized being good kids, being good citizens. That means we obey, follow directions.

<Begin Segment 18>

AL: Did you have any problems in supervising your brothers? Did they, did any of you get into trouble or anything like that?

EO: No...

AL: All good boys?

EO: No, in camp they were all very good, I think because of upbringing. We had to work on the farm before school, after school. Dad being strict, we know that there wasn't any monkeying around. But there were all those things that made us keep our nose to the grind wheel. At the field we, we'd play around some time. Being that we raised a lot of peas, we would put stakes in the ground. To do that we would take a crow bar, that is a long bar, put a hole in the ground make an enlarged hole. Take this post that was about 6 feet long, pointed end, shove 'em in the ground. Later with a little tool that we made, pound them in the ground. But, one... because we liked sports, when we started stringing peas up, we would high jump over those pea strings. Sometimes we'd miss. But we would do that. Another thing, we would take the pea posts, like a pole-vaulting post, and pole vault over some strings. And lotta times, in the process when we were, before all that, we'd be puttin' the posts in the ground, Dad would see us monkeying around, so he would pick it up, post up, they were light, he'd chase us with it. Never caught us, but we became fast runners because of that. Because at school, we were the fastest runners. I remember being the fastest runner in the K-eight at Burton grade school. So, things that we look at as being kind of negative, can turn into a positive thing.

AL: When, when he came back from Missoula, when he joined you, did you notice any difference in him physically or mentally or emotionally? Or was he just the same old guy?

EO: Well, we know, of course, he was glad to join us. He was able to see some other Issei people that he had known previously and also had gotten to know, so he socialized a lot with them. He didn't scold us or anything. But at home he was, he was a father, took care of the boys. But we weren't home too much because of school and work. So we didn't see too much of him like we did before the evacuation.

AL: Was it a difficult adjustment for you to go from being in charge to being the son again?

EO: No, 'cause I was still kind of on my own. I went and got that job at the fire engine as the engineer on my own. Went to school because I wanted the education. And I just, my teacher at school said, when I got drafted, that when I finished my basic training I would have enough credits to get my diploma, to graduate. Which, because of the war and the camp closing, everything, I never did. Except last year there was a law passed a few years before that that the veterans, under this national law for certain, I guess, requirements, can receive their diploma. So, I think it was last year, I went to Longmont high school here in Colorado and I was in the graduation ceremonies. They introduced me as a veteran, gave me a special gown with a red, white, and blue ribbon and all on it. It was surprising. But I got my diploma then as the class of 1946 graduate of Longmont high school in 2006 I believe it was, or '07.

AL: Congratulations.

EO: Thank you. [Laughs]

AL: That's great.

EO: Funny things happen.

AL: Do you know... your father's son, Daiji, in Japan, do you know if he was in the Japanese military?

EO: I don't know if he was or not.

AL: Okay. So you didn't have any correspondence with him, or...

EO: No, not after war started. There was no correspondence. Yeah. And he wasn't in the military there before the war started. I do know that while he was in Tacoma visiting us once, that he went out one night to look at the town and there was a shooting down one of the street and he got hit in the knee by a bullet, and I remember him coming home with that. And I don't know how Dad took care of that, but I never... he had a bullet in the knee and because of that he may have been crippled enough that he may have not been eligible for the military. I don't know. But I have not had any contact with him since.

<Begin Segment 19>

AL: What did you think when you got your draft notice in Minidoka?

EO: My draft notice? To me, it was fine. I'm ready to go, be in the army. I was expecting it. 'Cause it was in the summer, that summer that I got my notice for my physical.

AL: Is this 1944?

EO: 1944.

AL: What did your father think, or say at the time?

EO: He didn't say anything to me, as I recall. I was, that was fine. It's... you're American, you're gonna go fight for America.

AL: Where did you go for training?

EO: Camp Hood, Texas. At that time it was Camp Hood. Now it's Fort Hood. At that time it was Camp Hood and it was the main training area for the anti-tank, shall we say, trainees. They had a half track and there was, the decal was the face of a roaring tiger. But we trained as infantryman.

AL: Okay.

<Begin Segment 20>

AL: You know, just, I forgot to ask you one question. Did you... this might be too personal, but did you date in Minidoka or Tule Lake? Did you go on any dates?

EO: Yeah. Tule Lake I went to a... I had a crush on a young lady who came to Amache when they, we were separated in Tule Lake, Tule Lake became a "no-no" camp. So I kinda liked her and I took her to one of the dances in Tule Lake before we were sent to different, different camp. In (Minidoka), I started weightlifting club. Had a funny thing happen then. There was one gal, she was a good girl, but I think she kind of had a liking to me. And, 'cause she would hang around quite a bit. But she was going around with a Kibei kid, boy from Japan. He was about my size but he had two or three other buddies he would hang around with. I never paid attention to him. But, like I say, we talked and we were friendly. And one day the three Kibei boys, three or four of them, came to this little rec. center, one of the barracks, that's where we had our weightlifting club. And I had about a 170 pounds on the bar, which then was pretty light then. And I had been lifting, the cleaning, jerking, just kinda playing around with it. And we left the bar on the floor and we went to the other, little ways away from it to just kinda shoot the breeze, get some stuff ready. And one of the, the one fellow went over, looked at weight, and tried to pick it up. He went in to pick it up. For a lotta fellows, 170 pounds on the bar is a little heavy. You know, I never saw them anymore. [Laughs]

AL: What did you think about the "no-nos" at Tule Lake?

EO: Well, I didn't give them too much thought. The thing is, why did they want to say "no-no" for? I kinda figured, well, that's their business. I'm here, I'm a "yes-yes," I'm going in the army.

AL: Did you have... were you were when the Hoshidan was active? The pro-Japan movement in Tule Lake?

EO: No. They separated us before that, I believe.

AL: Before that.

EO: I think it was mostly all "no-nos" or a good majority of them when that Hoshidan, was it, group was there or was made there.

AL: Yeah, they had a, they had the Hoshidan and they also had a woman's movement. I can't remember what it was, maybe Seikokudan or something like that. And they had a youth movement. It was very active.

EO: Oh, was it?

AL: So you were probably in Minidoka by that time.

EO: By that time.

<Begin Segment 21>

AL: To skip forward again, so you said you went to Camp Hood? From there where did you go?

EO: From there... I finished my basic training there. And we were told to prepare for embarkation to Europe, as replacement for the 442. One week before we were scheduled to go to the port of embarkation, the POE, two of us in the battalion was sent up to G2, to MISLS, language school, Military Intelligence Service, in Minnesota. And I was sent up there. I didn't want to go. I wanted to be with my buddies and go to Europe. But they sent us up there. We ended up in an area called the Turkey Farm. A little square building about, oh maybe 15 feet square. It looked like a turkey barn so they called it the Turkey Farm.

AL: Why do you think they chose you to go to the MIS?

EO: Yes, you know, I found out later, I gathered what it was. See, while we were in, up there at Fort Snelling, I wanted to get into the military and go to Europe. Another kid and I, we tried to apply for like the airborne, to get in the airborne, we tried the army, we tried everything but they wouldn't release us. And he went down into Military Language School there. I went for a while. But I wanted to get out real bad and be in the fighting. So they sent me to see the major, it was Major John Aiso, he later became a colonel. But Aiso and... we were talking about it. But then going up to see him, I had to take my personnel file. When we got into the military, before we... I think it was probably during the period of our pre-induction physical, or it could have been during our physical, going into induction. We had to take an IQ test. It covered the radio signals, you know, "beep, beep, beep," radio signal, mechanical aptitude, and our general IQ. I looked at that, if I still remember correctly, I looked at my radio IQ, my score on that was about a sixty-three. I was an idiot on that sound thing. I looked at my mechanical IQ, it was about a hundred and sixty something.

AL: Wow.

EL: It was really good. And then I went and looked at my general IQ -- I don't mean to brag by telling you this -- but it was a hundred and twenty, twenty-one or something like that. I can't remember. And that was probably one of the reason they sent me up to G2. We knew that a hundred and ten or a hundred and eleven and we were eligible for OCS, Officer Candidate School. But for G2, mine was hundred and, I guess it was hundred and twenty-one.

AL: So what, how did you serve in the MIS?

EO: I went to the school there and when I tried to get out I told John Aiso, Major Aiso, that I wanted to get out of Japan, Japanese school because I didn't want anything to do with Japanese. Now, we were raised as Americans. Going back a ways, I remember going to grade school. We went with the neighbor's kids, Ted Olson, and we would talk about what our fathers did. Ted said, "My dad works for the WPA." Work Project Administration. "He drives a caterpillar tractor for them, grading the roads. He makes $30 a month." I said, "Thirty dollars a month? Wow." I got home, I went to Dad, said, "Dad, Teddy's dad works at the WPA making $30 a month. Why don't you go work for the WPA, too?" Dad looked at me and said, "I can't. I'm an alien. I can't work for the WPA." Another big throw, big rock into my feelings. I didn't want to be a Japanese because of these little discrimination things. I didn't want to be. And that's the reason when I went to G2, that carried me over. I didn't want to be a Japanese. So I didn't want anything to do with Japanese. And when Dad tried to teach us Japanese, he gave us little Japanese elementary books. Talked about Momotaro and all that, all the little things. Now I kind of learned that, few of the kanji. I was able to write my name, various different things about kanji. Like "kawa" was a very easy one to remember, looked like a river, you know, running. All those things. But I didn't want to be a Japanese. And I told Major Aiso, "I want to get out of it. No, I don't want it. I want to go overseas." But anyway, I ended up on headquarters company. And two time I worked in the battalion, school battalion, twenty-five hundred students plus the personnel, I guess it was. Mail, and finally they put me in the battalion rations division. And I was in the butcher shop and I even learned how to cut meat, probably because of weightlifting because I carried quarters of beef from downstairs up the stairs, upstairs to the meat cutting block, and cut meat there. Ended up in charge of the (shop) where some of the kids were beginning to become discharged after the war ended. I ended up in charge of that, taking care of the rations for the school battalion. And when it came time to move the school battalion to the Presidio San Jose -- Monterey, I moved the operation to Monterey, set up the shop down there, and had some of the folks that worked for me take over, take care of that. And I got my discharge.

AL: So you never... they respected your request not to go to Japan then?

EO: Not to learn Japanese.

AL: Not to learn Japanese.

EO: Yeah. I would have gone to Japan, but not for Japanese.

AL: That's interesting. I'm surprised they didn't send you back to the 442.

EO: Well, I was hoping that they would.

AL: Uh-huh.

EO: Yeah, to Europe. We tried to get into the airborne, too. No luck.

AL: So after you were discharged, where did you go and what was your career?

EO: Dad was farming in, I think it was in Roy, Utah, at that time. So I went to Roy. No, wait a minute. He was farming in Layton, Utah. Layton... he was sharecropping tomatoes. So I went down there and helped him with the farm the first summer after I got out. And, I can't remember... then the second summer, he did some more. But I ended up helping him and also hauling a lot of the tomatoes from the farms nearby to the cannery up in Ogden. But then, later on, I got out. I did various different work for different people. But I ended up in Roy, Utah. Dad moved there, that's where he died. And then after that I moved down to Murray, Utah, stayed with folks I became friends, my youngest brother was friends with them. That was Tadehara. He was from, George was in the 442. He was in Europe and he was with the group that was with the "Rescue of the Lost Battalion." He came home, fifty years later he got in the mail his bronze star.

AL: That's slow. What... the, did your father become a citizen in 1952?

EO: He died in '48.

AL: Oh, so he never had a chance.

EO: He died an alien.

<Begin Segment 22>

AL: What, what became of your mother? I mean, where did she spend the war? When did you reconnect with her?

EO: Okay, yeah. My brother and his wife went to Japan. It was about 19-, 1970, probably 1975, right in through there. And in Japan he... it was either he or his wife's friend, they ran into her that worked for a telephone company. And her friend made a telephone call all through her mother's prefecture. I forgot which ken it was, maybe Fukuoka, I'm not sure. I have to look on a copy of Mother's birth certificate. Birth certificate or her certificate to come to the U.S. But anyway, it was on there. And located her. A friend that knew her said, "Oh yes, Kikue Goda," -- that was her name -- "lived in Berkeley, California." So when they get back, we got together and talked about it. We didn't want to contact her directly because it might be too much of a shock. She was getting older. So we contacted our oldest half-sister, May. And May lived in, at that time... let's see. She lives now in Oakland, California. She lived in Oakland, too. The other half-sister lives in Berkeley. And she said, came back and said, "Yes, she'll be glad to meet you." So we arranged to have her fly in, May fly in with her. We met right here in Denver at Stapleton airport. Had a little mini-reunion. My other brother John came in from Seattle, Sam lived here, at that time, in Denver. I was here in, I was here in Denver, I guess, yeah. A mini-reunion. Fifty years after she left.

AL: What was that like?

EO: It was great. It was good to see her. We hugged Mom, we talked about various different things, how she was, how we were, what we were doing.

AL: Where did she spend the war?

EO: She spent the war in Topaz. And I don't know where she went after she left camp -- I have to assume this part -- she was living with this sister May. She may have gone back to Oakland, California, with May. Lived with May for a number of years, I don't know how many.

AL: May is, is her sister?

EO: My sister, half-sister.

AL: Okay, so she had other children?

EO: Oh, yeah. Oldest half-sister. And then she went to live with another one of my half-sisters, Haruko. And now Haruko lives in San Leandro. That's where Mother lives.

AL: Is the father of your half-sisters, is that the man that she left your father for? Or is it somebody else?

EO: Oh, somebody else. One of them she lived with and then she married a Kanzaki, which is now her name. Yeah, Kanzaki.

AL: But you said that Toru Saito is also your half-brother.

EO: Uh-huh.

AL: Is that your mother's son?

EO: Yes. Same mother but different father from me.

AL: Okay, so how many children did she have?

EO: Had a total of twelve we found out.

AL: She was busy.

EO: Cheaper by the dozen. One died at birth, so there were eleven. And then several years later, probably been in '30, one of the girls died. So that left ten. And I think all the rest of us, oh, my younger brother, not the youngest, younger brother died, so there's nine of us living now.

AL: Okay. But you're the oldest of her children.

EO: I'm the oldest of all of them.

AL: Can you say the names of her other children? I know it's a lot to keep track of. [Laughs]

EO: No, but I can tell you starting with my youngest brother. Youngest brother is Sam, then half-sister May, then Toru. In between somewhere, Hajime, he was one of the younger ones. Hajime, probably be Kanzaki. Then there was Ben. Ben... Toru, Hajime, Ben... that's probably it.

AL: Do you have contact with them now?

EO: I have contact with May, with Hajime a little bit. He came to John's funeral. Talk with Haruko, 'cause Mom lives with her. Mostly by telephone and Christmas cards, things like that.

<Begin Segment 23>

AL: What did you think of the redress movement? Were you involved in that? Did you have an opinion?

EO: I wasn't involved in it, but I got my redress.

AL: What did you feel about that? How did you feel about it?

EO: Well, I was grateful for the $20,000. It was very helpful. The ones that were most grateful for that I think was the Issei, the older people that were still living. 'Cause they were too old to work since they left camp. Financially they were in very dire straits. So it could have been and I think it probably was, and I'm sure it was, kind of a godsend to them. It was very grateful. And I was grateful for twenty, who won't be?

AL: What did you think of the apology?

EO: I got one... it said in one of the little news, not the news item, but a paper that was in one of the displays. They got the apology from, I think it's Clinton. I got mine from George Bush, you know. And I got mine in probably 1990? 1988 or 19... '88 was Reagan that signed the...

AL: Right.

EO: And so I got mine probably before, or about the time I retired.

<Begin Segment 24>

AL: And what did you retire from? What was your...

EO: From the U.S. Forest Service. I had served for, all together, including my military time which we got credit for as well as camp time, I think I had gotten about close to twenty, twenty-four years, twenty-five years.

AL: What did you do with the Forest Service?

EO: Well, I went in as a forestry tech. I was in charge of recreation for the district that was Summit County. That was something new because they had gotten a brand new reservoir, and I ended up in charge of that. In winter I was a snow ranger because of the fact I skied. A different story all together. But I learned to ski. I was on the professional ski patrol for two winters. I was offered a job as a snow ranger by one of the rangers on the Dillon district which was, at that time it was Jerry Covault. He ended up as a ranger in Montana, working as... I can't remember. In timber or recreation, but what they called the supervisor's office. He was a very good man. But anyway, that's how I got in the Forest Service and did my snow ranger duty at three of the main Summit County ski areas. Those that ski would recognized was Keystone, A Basin which is Arapahoe basin, Copper Mountain. I also covered for a short time over in Breckenridge ski area, but four was too much to take care of.

AL: Did you, did you have a family of your own?

EO: No. I didn't get married yet then.

AL: Oh, it's never too late.

EO: But, anyway, I was in avalanche control.

AL: Uh-huh.

EO: So I met a lot of the people. We did a lot of the avalanche control where we take... back there then we didn't have an Avalauncher with a pneumatic cannon. So we'd take five-pound sticks of seismograph powder, it was, seismograph was, I think, 60 percent powder. Back there then -- which they don't do now, I want to make it clear -- we'd get the fuse made up, get the fuse into our seismograph powder, put it in a backpack. We had an old-fashioned, I had an old-fashioned army pack, one of those kind of A-frame pack, very hard to use, and I remember carrying like ten sticks, about 60 pounds of powder, down on top of, ridge of the slopes where the snow would blow over, cornices build up. And then we would find the spot where we'd have to throw the charges. Pull one out; gave it to our pro-leader there that was Dick Doberstein. He'd pull it, he'd toss it, we'd ski away, get down, cover our ears. Soon as it went off, ski out close to the edge, look, see if the slope slid out or not.

<Begin Segment 25>

AL: We... I would love to talk to you all night. I know we're down to the last few minutes of tape and you're down to the last few minutes of your time. But I wanted to ask... I mean, this, this interview is gonna go in an archive and will be around for many, many years, long after all of us are around. And I'm curious what, if anything, any lesson or message that you would like to share with future generations, you know, people who may not even be born yet. What, what you would want them to know about your life or your experience?

EO: Yes. One thing that helped, I can probably say, at that time -- well, I know today it would help me -- the philosophy I carried for years. The religion that I, my wife got me into -- she's Caucasian -- is Nichiren Shoshu, Buddhism, it's a Soka Gakkai Buddhism that in many ways, because it got so strong politically in Japan, a lot of the folks kind of look down upon. But the main thing is to remember, which I remember, is in English... in Japanese it would be, well, in our Buddhist language it was Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo which literally translates into -- in speaking English, "Devotion to the law of cause and effect," which is a law of "As you sow, so shall ye reap." Scientifically speaking, the law of cause and effect. They all kind of, all go together. And if we remember that, you would not hold a grudge against anything, or try not to. Because you know if you hold a grudge against something, you're going to reap that later. And that'll come back like seven times seven, seven times seventy, seventy times seventy. So I can probably give notion that always keep your chin up, look at the bright side, and just remember, as we sow, so shall we reap. So sow good and we will reap good. And that way it'll help with world peace, help everyone in world. Even if they may be bad to us, we don't want to be bad back to them. 'Cause you'll be creating bad karma, which is other thing that many people heard of, karma. So, keep it up. If something is tough, remember, shigata ga nai. Yeah, Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.

AL: That's wonderful, Eddie. You mentioned your wife is Caucasian, what is her name?

EO: Her maiden name was Irlene Ann Zimmerman, and she was from Kansas, folks were from Kansas. They had a farm out there. She ran... very interesting thing. I covered part of the way I met her, did I? Yeah. Oh, I was looking for the people that threw trash, you know, turned the signs around. I covered that? But she had a rice ball when I went to see her, she hid it. She had served a year in Sanai House and Michio Kushi's Macrobiotic House in Boston, Massachusetts, learning macrobiotic cooking. I had learned the same from Herman and Cornelia Aihara on the western, western U.S., in macrobiotics. And they all knew each other. So we had something in common. And when she knew, or learned that I had known Herman, she didn't worry about it, so I saw her rice ball.

AL: How... what year did you get married?

EO: We got married in, let's see... it was 1974, I guess. '74.

AL: Is she still living?

EO: Oh yes.

AL: She's a macrobiotic cook, she's probably... you'll both live to be five hundred then. You'll be so healthy.

EO: Yeah. She, she uses a modified form of macrobiotic because I eat like natural meats, organically grown, fish, salmon, wild fish. I like lamb, because of my weightlifting I need the strength.

AL: That's great.